


(the sky, the sea, everything in between)

by SharkEnthusiast



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester Falling in Love, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Castiel is Loved (Supernatural), Castiel is Protective of Dean Winchester, Castiel is a Winchester (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Angst, Dean Winchester Has PTSD, Dean Winchester Has Trust Issues, Dean Winchester Has a Heart, Dean Winchester Needs Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Dean Winchester is an angry sleeper. Like a bear., Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gen, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Human Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Hunter Dean Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester is Loved, Sam Winchester is So Done, Teen Dean Winchester, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, the winchesters with a positive upbringing that make them all not as emotionally stunted!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:50:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21760441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkEnthusiast/pseuds/SharkEnthusiast
Summary: Dean goes missing in August, 2 days before school starts back up again.
Relationships: Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Comments: 28
Kudos: 124





	1. The Moon

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS AN AU!!! Mary and john burned alive in a fire, so a real nice couple adopted them! This is not entirely centered around that- it's mainly just the idea that if the Winchesters had grown up normal- who would they be?? Also with some characters from later in the show being their friends as teenagers too cause i wanted them to be haha.  
> also i don't really like mary or john, so thats why i ended up not making them present in this at all.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Dean goes missing in August, 2 days before school starts back up again. 

Sam doesn’t worry. Dean does it pretty often, really, ‘cause Dean likes girls and weed, alcohol and parties, and he’s done it plenty of times before. 

Dad starts to worry the second day he’s gone. Wringed hands, pacing, glances at the phone. He bursts in from work and looks around like Dean’s going to be sitting there grinning.

Dean doesn’t show up the third day either.

Dad’s always been soft on him. Sam knows it’s because it was all his idea to adopt them in the first place, back when their real parents had burned alive and Dean was doing the whole not talking thing. Knows it’s because Dean, before he got all old and sport obsessed, got used to Dad first. 

Mom urges him not to call the police because she’s the sensible one, because she knows how teenage boys work, especially stupid, angry ones like Dean. 

“-Trying to scare us.” Sam thinks she says to Dad when he’s falling asleep on the 3rd night. “You know how he gets.” Sam can imagine Dad, in bed, chewing on his lip, shoving his hands through his hair, rubbing at his temples. He almost smiles. “Especially with the baseball thing.” 

Dean is baseball crazy. Practice 5 days a week, games on Saturday and Sunday. He’s got the cards and the jerseys, favorite teams and opinions, knows all the statistics by heart. He threw a fit when he tore his rotator cuff last season, begged for the surgery so he could pitch again, cried so hard he could barely breathe when he found out that surgery meant 6 months of healing plus PT.

3 months later with 3 more to go, Dean is stir crazy, and so, like Mom said, this disappearance makes sense, especially with “the baseball thing”. He’s probably at Michaels or Benny’s or any other house of his friends, smoking or drinking and other stuff Sam knows their parents would disapprove of.

On the fourth day, Mom calls all his friends and when she finds out no one has seen him since 4 days previous, she calls the police, too. Sam listens to Mom and Dad scream at each other once the police have left. They scream until Mom is crying, until it’s almost dark out and Dean has been missing for 5 days. 

Sam still thinks this is all another anger-fueled prank pulled by Dean. That he’ll show up the next day, laugh in their faces for “ _fucking worrying”_ , stomp upstairs, lock his door and throw foam baseball stress balls at the wall with his non-pitching (non-completely-fucked-up) arm.

Six days pass. 

Seven. 

Eight. The police are looking for a dead body, now. Sam hears the PTA moms gossip about Dean's “abduction” when he buys something from the bake sale. Hears them whisper things about his older brother and the nefarious people he hung out with that got him abducted then killed. 

_Dean is not dead._ Sam tells this to himself, a mantra. Because even though Dean is obnoxious and likes to make fun of Sam all the time, he walks him from school and back, ruffles his hair, and tells him about girls and all the stupid things kids in his grade do. 

Mrs. Monroe gives Sam a cookie even though he’s 12, not 3, and lets him stay in for lunch and do his homework. Mrs. Monroe is old and nice, and Sam likes her, even though Dean said she was an idiot and failed him because that one time when he accidentally poisoned Jerry Walsh with Febreze. (“How the fuck was I supposed to know he was allergic? It’s not like I meant to spray it into his water bottle!”)

So he stays in for lunch, finishes up his math homework and eats cookies. And then he thinks. About places Dean could be ( _drowned in the river)_ , why he’s been gone for so long ( _dead, dead, dead),_ what will happen when he finally comes home. He thinks about how Mom and Dad will react, how they’ll all cry and hug him and Dean will just grin and apologize for scaring them so bad.

9 days have gone by and Sam is starting to feel like he can’t breathe without his older brother. He starts feeling like he doesn’t know what to do without Dean, like he doesn’t know how to do anything, either. His hands shake in the morning when he lifts the toothbrush to his teeth cause Dean is usually right next to him with his hair gel that smells like crap but he still wears it cause “chicks dig it”. He starts to cry so hard he can’t breathe, and Mom holds him to her chest like he’s a little kid still and until she’s crying, too. 

“Sam.” She whispers into his ear. She presses a kiss into his cheek. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” 

“He’s dead.” He sobs. Hiccups. He didn’t do his math homework last night, either. 

“Shhhhh.” She whispers. “It’s okay.”

She lets him skip school. Sits with him on the couch and watches all the silly shows Sam likes, even Scooby-Doo. 

“Okay,” She says. Presses another kiss into his forehead, wipes his cheeks to see if they’re dry. “What do you want for lunch?” 

“Not hungry.” Sam responds. On TV, Velma loses her glasses again. 

“Grilled cheese, then.” 

He sits and watches TV while she makes him his lunch, listening to her hum the silly song from the silly musical Grandma always sings.

The doorbell rings. 

“I’ll get it.” He calls, standing up. He wraps the blanket on the couch around him like a cape. It’s probably another neighbor with soup or casserole or one of those gross fruit cakes that Sam is starting to hate. 

He pulls the door open and for a second, just for a second, he thinks his heart stops, stutters in his chest, restarts all over again. 

“Dean?”

He can hear something clatter in the kitchen. 

“Sammy?” Mom calls. “Is that Dean?”

It is. His face is grimy and streaked with mud, hair plastered down onto his forehead. His clothes are wet, even though it’s not raining. His hands and shirt and pants are covered in something Sam hopes isn’t blood. 

“Dean?” He asks again. Mom joins him at his shoulder. 

“Baby?” She asks. Her voice is terrified. Scared and shaky around the edges. 

“I don’t know what happened, Sammy,” Dean whispers. His lip is trembling, and Sam can’t tell whether it's from the cold or trying not to cry. “I got no clue, it's just-”

He cuts off. Sam hopes the red staining Dean’s shaking hands isn’t blood. 

“Dean?” It’s mom this time. He’s standing still, in the doorway, covered in _blood,_ looking dazed and sad and desperately confused. 

“Sorry for scaring you.” He whispers. Mom has got him all wrapped up in her arms and he’s crying even harder than Sam, sobbing and wailing desperate things into her ears, face buried into her chest even though he outgrew her ages ago. 

“I don’t know what happened.” Dean says, and his voice is all cracking and breaking and terrified.

Sam has never seen his brother this way.

“I don’t know what happened there was just-” Mom wraps him up tighter. 

“Shhh, baby.” She whispers into his hair. Dean is starting to shake again. “Shhhh, it’s okay.”


	2. Nine of Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh

Dean wakes up on August 11th, 9 days after he went missing, on the riverbank. His clothes are wet. 

He wakes up, and before he registers everything around him, he registers that his ears and feet and fingers are cold. That his chest aches each time he breathes in and that the world is spinning. 

He brings himself to his hands and knees, and no matter how much it hurts, no matter how nauseous he feels, he lifts is head u p, up and up so he can look around him. 

He throws up. Retching, coughing sputtering, stomach flipped inside out. 

There is a body laying across from his, half submerged in water. Eyes glassy, mouth open, abdomen one large mess of red. She is no older than 12.

Dean is sick again.

He scrambles for a reasonable explanation, scrambles for a reason for the dead body in front of him, for the red tinted water, for his aching body. 

He does not find anything. 

He picks himself back up from his hands and knees, up, up, and up, no matter how dizzy it makes him, no matter how confused he is, no matter how scared he is. He has to get out because he does not want to end up like the 12 year old girl in front of him.

He ignores the gaping hole in his memory, the aching in his shoulder, and runs in the direction he thinks the house is in. 

He does not remember getting there, does not remember his feet on the pavement. He just remembers Sam,  _ Sammy, _ face crumbled into concern, hands reaching out to steady him, yelling for Mom. Dean’s teeth are chattering. 

(The girl beside him, no older than 12, insides ripped out, water around her red.)

“Baby?” Mom whispers, pressing her hands into him too, pressing worry and wrinkles and gripping his shirt so tightly her knuckles turn white. 

Sammy is starting to shake, too. 

“I don’t know what happened, Sammy.” Dean whispers. He can feel the tears in his throat, can see the girl in his vision, 12 years old, insides turned out, face splattered with red, red, red. 

He feels sick again. 

Mom’s arms are around him, murmuring something in his ear that doesn’t matter because someone is  _ dead _ , and Dean is somehow alive, and the world is spinning. 

“Dean,” She whispers to him, keeping him from falling. He’s shaking and he can’t stop, can’t stop the pained, awful, sobbing noises coming from him either. “Where were you?” She walks him over to the couch, sits him down.

He wants for something to tell her, wants for an excuse, wants for an explanation. 

He doesn’t know. 

“Don’t remember.” He forces out, gasping.

“Okay.” Mom whispers. “It’s okay. Do you know where the blood is coming from?”

He shakes his head. He’s so, so tired. 

“Was in the river. Was all bloody. There was this girl-” His head hurts. His hands hurt too, and when he looks down, they’re scraped up and turning black and blue. He presses them to his stomach. 

He doesn’t know what happened. 

Mom grabs his hands, light, trying to keep them out of view. 

It hurts. 

“Shhh. You don’t have to tell me. I think I’m gonna drive you to the hospital so we can figure out whose blood that is. Is it yours?”

Dean shakes his head. 

“No. Mom, she was all torn apart and I threw up and my head hurts and-”

“Shhhh.” Mom says again. She’s dragging him at this point. Down the stairs, into the car. 

“Mom?” He asks. ( _ The girl, insides torn out, eyes glassy and mouth open, dripping blood.) _

“Mom?” He asks again. He doesn’t remember if she answered or not the first time. 

“I don’t think this is real.” He says. He can taste the words on his tongue, the salt from his tears. He grips his hands around himself. It doesn’t feel like it is real. 

“I don’t think this is real.” He repeats. He can’t breathe. Can’t catch a breath. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

“Shhhh.” Mom whispers. “Shhhhhh.”

Celeste Thomas-Marsh has never been more scared in her life. 

Dean (her baby, her little boy, her angel) is shaking so violently he can’t fasten the seat belt around himself. She doesn’t know whether its from the cold or shock.

She doesn’t know where the blood is coming from. If it’s even his at all. If he’s going to die in seconds in the passenger seat of her minivan, if he’s going to survive the night, if the “Don’t remember”s and “Mom”s and “I don’t think this is real”s mean something permanent and irreversible that doctors can’t fix. 

She speeds the entire way to the hospital, watches Dean from the corner of her eye. He’s hyperventilating, head cradled in his hands, bloody, wet, shaking.

She does not know what to do. 

When she pulls up to the E.R. and lets nurses sweep Dean away she calls Richard, ignoring her shaking hands. 

She’s never been much of a religious person, but right now, she’s praying to God that Dean will be okay. 

The police don’t really know what happened anymore than Dean does. 

They find the girl in the river (Mellissa Daniels, 11 years old). They blame the tragedy and 21 stitches in Deans stomach on an animal attack, blame his loss of memory on a hit to the head and a little trauma. (“It can happen,” Sammy tells him. “Your brain blocks out the crappy stuff to protect you.”) (“Fuck that.” Dean says, lays his head back into his pillows. Sam eyes him. “Fuck that.”) 

Dean’s released from the hospital with painkillers and his mom's arm looped through his. (Dad cries in the hospital. Told Dean how worried they were, about how scared he was that Dean was dead, about how much he loves him.)

Sam is clingy, which isn’t that bad, actually. Dean ignores when the girls dead eyes swim in his vision, ignores the holes in his memory, ignores the nightmares of teeth and claws. 

9 days later, and Dean goes back to school. He has tests to make up and homework to do and detentions to attend. In between number 2 pencils and the droaning of substitute teachers, he quietly thinks he’s going insane. Because his bed is starting to feel like a coffin, because the nightmares have switched from teeth and claws to humans with animal features ripping through his skin with pointed fingernails.

He always wakes up, stitches aching, stifling his urge to scream. 

18 days with 3 hours of sleep each night later, and his hands are starting to shake and Mom gets his doctor to prescribe him with sleeping pills. 

And even though it’s stupid, even though he knows it’s not rational, he searches newspapers for ads for psychics, calls Missouri Mosley with his shaky hands. 

He goes to meet her on a Tuesday after school, and he learns the truth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this so much but I had to rewrite it a ton hahah
> 
> But yeah I’m a ton more excited for the rest of this story this one was just bad sorry


	3. Ace of Pentacles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is gone for nine days, and afterwards, he’s different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh!!!!!! I’m thrilled for the next chapter!!!

Dean is gone for nine days, and afterwards, he’s different. At first it’s tears, clothes soaked and hands bloody. 

He turns into something different at the hospital, all pissed off and angry. He shoves Sam off his bed, rolls his eyes when dad cries over him. 

Dean comes home, and Sam is suddenly sure that Dean isn’t going to be the same after this. He’s not sure that’s even bad. Dean used to smoke weed and get blackout drunk, used to screw girls in the janitors closet between 3rd and 4th period. 

_ So this is better  _ Sam convinces himself. That tired eyes and sleeping pills are better than not knowing the crap Dean is up to. 

Dean quits the baseball team, which makes Mom cry. He sometimes forgets to pick Sam up from school, but always comes back sorry, hands white knuckles on the steering wheel. 

Tired eyes and sleeping pills turn into dangerous grins and secrets. Turn into locked bedroom doors, late night trips in the car. Some days, Dean comes with Sam to the library and disappears into the shelves until five minutes before closing time, photocopies under his arm. 

“This is better.” Mom tells Sam. “He’s happy.” 

Sam wants to think she’s right. Because Dean smiles more, because he stays up late on the telephone, laughing.

(Sam doesn’t, because Dean doesn’t give a crap about baseball anymore, because he doesn’t try in school, because he tore down the posters of baseball players on his bedroom walls.) 

Even though  _ this is better _ , Mom and Dad push Dean into therapy, because he’s lost interest in most everything, because he’s reckless and teenaged, because Dad thinks Dean is fractured and fragile. 

3 months in, Mom and Dad find out that he’s been skipping therapy since halfway through month one, and Mom yells at Dean until they’re both shaking. When Dad asks what he was doing instead, Dean scoffs and tells them to  _ back the fuck off _ . That they are  _ crappy excuses for parents,  _ that he’d rather be  _ fucking dead, rather be living with John Winchester  _ than with them _.  _

Mom drives them to school the next day, cause Dean isn’t allowed to use the car anymore. It doesn’t really matter, though, because Dean starts to get rides with Benny just to spite them. 

Sam cannot help but miss him. Not the weird, scary sad, scary mad, version, but the one who even though he was a mess of illegal substances, loved Sam in some half assed way. 

Dean comes home one night, and before Mom and Dad can begin to yell at him, he pushes out an excuse. 

“Sorry. I was out with Benny.” 

Dad sighs through his nose and Mom begins to open her mouth.

“We’re kinda dating.” Dean's eyes are pinned on Sam. He doesn’t look scared at all, jaw set, eyes deep and dark. 

“Oh.” Is what Mom says.

“Oh.” Dad repeats. 

_ Oh, oh, oh. _

“Can he come over tomorrow night for dinner?”

Mom grips Deans face, hands on his cheeks. 

“Sure, baby.” Her arms are around Dean, and Dean is still staring at Sam, mouth a stiff straight line. (Sam silently rewrites his thoughts on Benny, silently pencils in  _ boys and girls _ under the list of thing Dean likes.) 

“Love you.” Mom whispers. “What should I make when he comes over?” 

“Sammy.” Dean hisses that night, in the doorway of Sam's bedroom, outlined by the hall light. Sam flips in his bed to face him. 

“Yeah?”

“We cool?”

“Yeah.”

Dean steps further into the room.

“Why you acting like some pissy baby, then?”

Sam sighs, then sits up. He feels all too old for only 12. 

“Cause you’re different. You quit baseball, Dean. You  _ love _ baseball.”

“So fucking what. Do you give a shit about how I Kissed Benny or not?”

At least the way Dean talks is the same, all foul and sharpened to a point.

“No.”

“Good.”

“Are you actually dating him?”

Dean snorts. Shifts his weight from foot to foot. Sam can picture the grin. 

“Nah, man. We just kissed. Gotta get Mom and Dad off my ass somehow, right?” 

Dean keeps standing there, and Sam keeps staring up at him.

“Sorry I’m a jackass.” Dean bites out. “Just. A lotta shit has happened recently.”

“It’s okay.” Sam turns back onto his other side. “I don’t really want to know about it anyway.”

Dean sighs.

“Love you, Sammy.”

The night feels heavy on Sams chest, stifling. He cannot believe that he is only 12. 

“Love you, Dean.”

That night he dreams about  _ Dean, Dean, Dean,  _ grinning, laughing, crying, kissing, burning alive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh I don’t really like this chapter I’m sorry


	4. Six of Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam meets Jess the first day of his 2nd year at Stanford, when Jess’s parents are moving her into the dorm next door. She apologizes for the big fuss, tucks a strand of that honey gold hair behind her ear, and grins so wide that Sam swears to god that something inside him breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally got excited for the path this story is going in! also if you didn't notice, the chapter names are different kinds of tarot cards (Yes, i looked this up) cause what is supernatural without some occult??

Sam meets Jess the first day of his 2nd year at Stanford when Jess’s parents are moving her into the dorm next door. She apologizes for the big fuss, tucks a strand of that honey gold hair behind her ear, and grins so wide that Sam swears to god that something inside him breaks.   
“They insist on moving me in.” She says. Sam grins back.   
“Mine do too.”   
A year later they’re dating.   
She’s normal, which is something Sam doesn’t think he’s ever really had. She doesn’t have the adopted parents, the fucked up brother, just a mouth full of silly stories and a VHS tape of memories.   
She’s in pre-med, and she likes horror movies and true crime, likes limes better than lemons, likes Sam and his dopey grin.  
God, he likes her, too.   
“Tell me about Dean.” She says one night, long hair piled onto the pillow, voice all raspy and deep with sleep. “I get you don’t get along. Why?”  
Sam clears his throat, once, twice, three times. Thinks of Dean, cocky grin, alcohol replaced by sleep medication, waking up screaming in the middle of the night.   
“We don’t not get along.” He mumbles. Because even though things have been weird, they’ve never been hostile.   
Jess hums. Brings her hand out from under the sheet and up onto Sam’s cheek. He wants to melt into it, wants to ignore her question, to kiss her again, again, again, until he forgets it, too.   
“We just never got close, I guess.”  
“Why?” Jess asks again.   
Sam feels bitter, black and burnt. (His mother, dead, dead, dead, his father, twice as much)  
“I don’t know. He’s had a hard life. Gone through shit, you know? He just kinda isolated himself from me. Took off after his graduation, didn’t even say goodbye. Last I heard he was in West, Texas.”   
Jess has that sympathetic look on her face, features all torn up into a state of remorse. Sam does not want to get angry at that, so he gets angry at Dean instead.   
“I worry about him.” He says.   
(Worries about all the different versions of him. The cocky one, the scared one, the one so desperate and raw it scares Sam and their parents a little. Dean, Dean, Dean.)  
“Yeah. He’s just had a hard life.”   
“Yeah.” Jess hums. “Thanks for telling me.”  
“No problem,” Sam says.   
(Dean, Dean, Dean, hands bloody, eyes scared.)  
Sam dreams of fire that night, and when he wakes up panting, Jess lays her head on his chest as proof that she is breathing. 

Sam’s brother shows up in the winter, clad in flannel and leather, smelling like smoke.   
“Hey.” He says, grin savage, sleazy, 100 watt. “Uh, I’m Dean.”  
“Jessica.” She says. Examines him a little more- the black car behind him, the beat-up jacket, the calloused hands hanging at his sides. He doesn’t look like she imagined, doesn’t look fragile, doesn’t look like a person Sam should worry about. (He looks dangerous. Strong enough to beat Sam in a fight, sharp as a knife.)  
“Is Sam in?”   
“Yeah.” Sam’s hand is behind her now, warm voice, warm hands, warm heart.   
(His brother seems cold.)  
Dean’s kilowatt smile is back, this time wrinkling his eyes up around the edges as he lets himself into the apartment. Sam hugs him, pats him on the back, awkward. Dean doesn’t seem to notice.  
“Holy shit, man!” He crows, holding Sam at an arm's length to look at him. “Jesus, college is treating you well.” He turns to Jess. “Let me just tell you, you are way out of my brother's league.”  
She frowns.   
“Dean,” Sam says. She feels his arm snake around her waist, pulling her in tight. “What are you doing here?”  
“Was in town, just thought I’d swing by. Glad I did cause how else would I have figured out you got this pistol on your arm?”  
Sam rolls his eyes, and Jess watches, watches, watches. Watches Sam loosen his grip around her waist, watches Dean’s eyes get cold in the same way Sam’s do too whenever he gets mad.   
“Jeez, Dean. It’s not like we’re close or anything.” Sam says. Jess does not miss the painfully blank positions his features have assumed, does not miss the flash of guilt in Deans.   
“Wow, Sam, way to hit someone where it hurts. You planning to put a ring on this girl's finger?” (Jess blushes, just a little. She’s wanted that ring on her finger since the day they met, and it’s been 2 years since that.) (God, her sister was right. Sam makes her all gooey.)  
“Dean.”  
“If you aren’t, I’ll do it for you,” Dean scans over her with his eyes. She wishes she had more on. He whistles, high and reedy and soaring. No wonder Sam doesn’t like to talk about him. “Cause damn.”  
Sam turns to her then, face twisted into a mix of emotions that Jess isn’t sure she can decipher.   
“Jess, can you go to the bedroom for a second? I need to talk to Dean.” Dean, beside them, scoffs. No wonder they don’t get along.   
She goes to the bedroom. Shuts the door behind her. Folds the laundry on the bed, listens to the sound of voices from the other room.   
She wishes she had better ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split up this chapter and the next because it got crazy long! so the 5th chapter will probably be up soon. (hopefully)


	5. Two of Pentacles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy is all grown up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry for my recent inactivity. I'm writing two fics rn and legit i just stopped writing and so now i haven't updated them both in like months!!! anyway, I hope you like this.

Sammy is all grown up. Has the cute girl wrapped around his arm, has the shaggy hair that actually suits him now. He doesn’t look as painfully young anymore to Dean, doesn’t look as helpless. Dean knows better, though. Knows that just because Sam shot up a couple inches and has finally grown into his limbs doesn’t mean he’s not in danger, doesn’t mean he doesn’t still need protection. 

He checks the arsenal in the trunk. Puts flasks of holy water in his jacket, tucks his gun into the waistband of his jeans. He sews anti possession charms into the collars of his coats, calls Ash just to make sure. 

Sam is suspicious. After reprimanding Dean for hitting on his girl, he hisses things about how out of the blue this is, how he could of called. 

Dean almost snorts at that. If he had called, he doesn’t think Sam would have picked up. 8 years apart will do that to people. Create a rift, or whatever. 

“Sam. I’m just stopping by. I got a motel and everything, but if you want me gone I can be out in 15.”

Sam scoffs, then. Looks down at Dean, all high and mighty. Dean shoves down his anger, reminds himself that Sam doesn’t need to know the shit he does, reminds him that this is not Sam’s fight. 

“Dean, it’s fine. Just stop flirting with Jess, okay?” 

Dean smiles. Digs his hand into his inner coat pocket, produces two little slips of paper. 

“You know, I won this weird little getaway thing. It’s a cabin for two about an hour away. I gotta be out of town soon and I don’t have anyone to spend it with, do you and Jess want it?”

Dean would figure that after 10 years of hunting, he’d be a little better at lying. He just needs Sam and Jess out, and fast, needs them far away. 

Sam looks at him, shakes his head once in some sort of wonder. 

“I got an interview for law school here on Monday. Where you’d managed to get your hands on those, anyway?”

“Kristy Stewart, Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Found out I liked cock too and left them in the house I was renting. Real tragic.” 

Sam shakes his head again. 

Dean presses, because he needs Sam and Jess  _ out, fast, soon. _ “What’s so important about the interview?”

His head shakes again. 

“Jesus, Dean. It’s my entire future on a plate if I don’t want to end up like you.” 

Dean laughs. Ignore how his stomach twists. 

“What, fucking awesome? You’re such a little nerd.”

“Whatever, man. Me and Jess can’t go. Call up Benny or another of your booty calls and go with them.”

Dean laughs again. Presses more, ignoring the comment about Benny. (Because after high school, Dean had asked him to go off into the world with him, and he had refused.) (Then got married to some chick from Ohio 6 years later.)

“C’mon, Sam.”

Sam sighs, looks at Dean, who’s fixed face into his best puppy dog eyes attempt. 

“No, man.” 

Damn. Dean needed them out. If he can’t, then he’ll just stay with them instead. 

“Well, you’re missing out. Wanna go out for a beer? Bring Jessica, if you want.” 

He wishes he left out the  _ if you want _ . Because it doesn’t matter if Sam wants to or not, Dean needs them both stuck to his side, not out of his sight. 

“She doesn’t drink. It’s cool though, we can go out just the two of us.” 

“Okay.” Dean agrees. “I gotta make a phone call, give me a second.” 

He dials the Roadhouse. Gets Ellen, demands for Ash, is passed to Jo instead. 

“Ash is sure it’s gonna be here?” He hisses into the burner. 

“Yeah,” Jo says. “His weird scanner thing said so.” 

Dean doesn’t say anything. He can hear Sam’s voice through the wall from his position in the hallway. 

“Be careful,” Jo says then. “Mom’ll have your head if you don’t come back in one piece.” 

“I’ll be fine.” He whispers back. Paces a couple steps, then stops. “Tell Ash thanks, Jo.” 

“Love you, Dean.”

He smiles, careful, bittersweet. Someday, it feels like Jo is more his sibling than Sam ever was. 

“I know.” 

He hangs up, walks back into the apartment. Makes some silly joke about getting wasted, winks at Jess, laughs when Sam starts to fume. 

He wishes Jess would come with them. It would make things easier.

Dean didn’t come to Stanford for Sam. He came because the thing that killed his parents is there, and this time, he swears he’s gonna kill it. 

Dean is different from the last time Sam saw him. His hair has gotten darker, for one. He’s finally grown into that grin of his, finally becoming some semblance of an adult. He doesn’t seem fragile, doesn’t seem 16 anymore, scared all the time. 

Sam watches as Dean knocks back another shot. Grabs one for himself. He can feel Dean grin. 

“Dang, Sam. Woulda took you as another one of those freaks who hate alcohol.”

Sam smiles back, lips pulled away from teeth. Reaches for another shot, shakes his head before downing it. 

Dean looks at him again. He’s been doing that studying thing of his a lot recently, head cocked, eyes narrow like he’s trying to wrap his head around who Sam is now. 

“Or one of the fuckers who likes all those girly drinks. Appletinis or some shit.” 

“Nope.” He’s watching Dean now, too. He doesn’t know when he got that scar on his hand. He seems hardened, now. A little dangerous. He smells like smoke and shoe polish, and Sam doesn’t know what that means, but he hopes it’s not something illegal. 

“I’m going for the pool table. Wanna join?” Dean asks, standing up from the barstool. “Stand back and watch though, don’t want you to ruin my magic.”

Sam laughs because whatever Dean went off to do after high school made him cocky and confident, something that Sam hasn’t seen in him since before the whole animal attack thing. 

“Sure, man.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter used to be one big one so i'll be posting them at the same time!!! So watch out and read both!


	6. The Sun (Reversed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mother fucker   
> (quote of this chapter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning!!! This chapter and the last one used to be one mega chapter! I went back and split them apart, and posted them at the same time. So! If you haven't read the last one, please do! it's the better half of this one :)

They return past midnight, moon high and bright in the sky, Dean humming along to Metalica or AC/DC or whatever the fuck he always listens to. Sam is smiling cause Dean is telling him some silly story about his friends who own a roadhouse, and it just feels  _ good. _ ‘Cause all of a sudden, Dean seems real to Sam instead of some older brother, 10 feet tall, heroic in all the wrong ways. Dean is real, he’s alive and grown. He doesn’t need his kid brother to worry anymore. 

“Your apartment is nice,” Dean says, turning down the volume on the tape deck and pulling up in front. “And so is your girl. Damn, I got no idea how you managed to swing that, Sammy.” 

“I think I’m gonna propose soon.” Sam spits out. 

“Holy shit, man! You got a ring yet?” 

“I’ve been shopping. She probably wants something huge and expensive, but we can’t really  _ afford _ huge and expensive right now so-”

And just like that, Dean is hugging him so tight Sam’s lungs feel crushed. Dean, in his 3 layers of clothes and anger, with his pretty smile, with his nightmares and boys and shaky hands. 

“Fuck, Sammy, I’m so proud right now. Mom is gonna have my head when she figures out you’re getting married before me, though.” 

“Uh,” Sam starts. Pries Dean off of him, studies him a little. “It’s Sam.”

“Whatever,” Dean says. Rolls his eyes, opens the door of the car. Sam joins him, dodges Dean’s hand trying to ruffle his hair. “You know, I should probably head to the motel.”

“Yeah. See you in the morning?”

“Yeah.” Dean slides back into that shiny black car of his, turns the key to make it purr, gives one last glance.

Sam unlocks the door to the building. Takes the stairs up, unlocks that door too. Flicks the lights on, pries off his shoes, calls for Jess. 

It smells like those silly ocean breeze candles Jess likes, smells like limes, smells like  _ home. _ Sam thinks he’ll call Mom and Dad tonight. He hasn’t talked to them in a while, and he knows they get lonely. 

Jess made cookies. God, he loves her so much his heart sometimes aches. (God, she might be his wife soon.)

He listens to the shower run. Bites into a cookie, shakes his head. Heads towards the bedroom, throwing his jacket on the couch on his way. 

The door to the apartment flies open. 

It’s Dean. Looking crazy and wild, miles away from the person he was at the bar, downstairs in the car, this entire trip. 

“Mother fucker!” Dean swears, rushing past the threshold of the doorway and to Sam. “Sammy, get out of here  _ right now. _ ” 

“What?” Sam’s hands are clasped around Dean's leather jacket. Tight, knuckles white. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears.  _ What? _

“Mother  _ fucker, _ ” Dean says again. In his hands is something that makes Sam physically recoil, something dangerous and scary and something that doesn’t belong in here. 

A gun. 

_ Mother fucker. _

Dean is shoving past him, gun pointed,  _ cocked _ towards the bedroom. He’s shoving through the door so hard it knocks against the wall, his eyes are wide, wide, wide, searching for something and Sam doesn’t know what it is. 

Everythings on fire. 

Dean shoots at something. Screams Jess’s name, shoves Sam out of the room, into the hall. His lungs burn. 

_ Mother fucker.  _

He runs back because  _ Jess is in there, Jesus Dean, let me in, that’s my girlfriend you dipshit. _

He wishes he hadn’t. 

2 hours later, and his lungs still hurt from smoke and screaming, eyes shot with red from rubbing them. The police officer who demands to be called Macy pats him on the back, smiles softly. Dean is waiting for him outside. 

(Jess is burning. Stuck to the ceiling, stomach bleeding, consumed by red and orange and white-hot. Dean pulls him out.)

“Dean?” He whispers, purr of the car drowning him out. Sam tries to not think of the gun, the fire, his red eyes and shaky hands. Dean hears anyway. “Dean?” He repeats, shoving his hands underneath his thighs to stop them from shaking. God, he hates that. He wants it to stop. 

“It’s okay,” Dean says. “Sammy, it’s okay.”

When Sam starts to cry so hard he feels like he might throw up, Dean pulls over to let him get out. Turns up the music to drown him out (not that Sam minds), looks the other direction. 

That night, in some seedy motel close enough to Palo Alto to attend the funeral and far away enough Sam doesn’t feel like breaking into 206 separate pieces, Dean makes a call that ends in a harsh dial tone and a soft string of cursing. Sam lays in bed. Breathes. In his head, Jess is still burning. The TV flicks on, starts playing some silly western. 

Sam tries to not think of the gun, the fire, his red eyes and shaky hands. Of Jess, burning, black, screaming his name like he can save her. 

  
  


His lungs still hurt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bruh y'all knew it was coming.   
> Not even gonna apologize cause it wasn't even sad cause of that lmao
> 
> (mother fucker)


	7. The Fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been 2 days of quiet. Dean doesn’t usually do quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo boy  
> kinda had the time of my life writing this whoopsie
> 
> also warning for using the f word 14 times which is excessive but I couldn't care less

It’s been 2 days of quiet. Dean doesn’t usually do quiet. 

He goes through his usual shitty motel routine, fits Sam into it. Offers salads and bottles of beer, space, and room to talk into. 

Sam doesn’t take the offerings. Just sits, silent, watches Dean and his hands and the ceiling and the shitty stove. 

Fuck. 

Dean wonders if selective mutism runs in the Winchester bloodline. 

Mom and Dad are flying down today, so Dean packs all of his guns into the trunk and locks it, just in case. He knows Dad would have an aneurysm if he found out about all the unregistered weapons Dean has. When he comes back, swinging the Impalas keys in his fingers, Sam is standing by the bed, looking at him. 

“Do they know?” Sam asks. His voice is quiet. Dean ignores the rush of pity, ignores how fucking bad it must be for Sam right now. 

“Mom and Dad?” Dean asks. Sam sinks on the bed, makes eye contact with him. 

Dean follows him. Shakes his head. “Do you wanna talk?” He asks, even though he’s never been good at that. 

“Not really,” Sam says, and Dean’s chest tightness all over again.

“Okay. I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up before Mom and Dad come.”

“Okay, Dean.”

Dean sleeps and dreams of Mary again. She fixes him a glass of milk, and when she turns around from the fridge, she has Jess’s face and a shiny ring on her finger.

“I miss you,” She says. 

“Okay,” he says back. He cannot remember what’s wrong. 

“Tell Sam I love him.”

“Okay.”

He wakes, feeling like his skin is being burned off, piece by piece. 

He swears he can smell smoke. 

When Dean picks up Mom and Dad from the airport, Dad hugs him tight, pats him on the shoulder, asks about how Sam is doing. Mom does the same. 

Dean doesn’t know what to say. 

Doesn’t know how to tell them that Sam isn’t talking, that his almost-wife burned alive and they both saw it, doesn’t know how to tell them how Sam hasn’t slept in the 2 days since. 

“Bad.” Is all he says, cause he thinks that about sums it up. “He didn’t eat anything all of yesterday.”

Mom looks like she’s about to cry. 

Jesus, everything about this sucks.

“Are you okay?” Dad asks him. He’s tall- taller than Dean but shorter than Sam, and Dean always remembers teachers back in highschool remarking on how that’s where they both must have gotten the height from. Sometimes, Dean didn’t even bother to correct them. (Cause back when Dean was in high school, all he wanted was for Benny to like him and to be products of his parents, to not feel like a total freak.)

“Yeah,” He says. Shrugs his shoulders. Mom is eyeing his leather jacket. “A little shaken, but okay.”

Mom eyes the Impala, too, eyes the cassette box and the shiny paint. He forgot that the last time they saw him he still had that butt-ugly Ford Taurus, still had been half-scared and whole not knowing what-the-fuck-he-was-gonna-do-with-his-life. 

She doesn’t say anything. 

Dean drives. 

Sam cries at the funeral, and Dean watches him. He’s half glad, cause that means that at least Sam is processing something. 

Sam has a lot of friends. Jess does too. They all crowd around Sam, sad and teary and wailing, and Dean doesn’t understand how that would make anyone feel better, so he hangs by Sam’s elbow and doesn’t talk. He’s vigilant and strong, doesn’t grin when the pretty redhead smiles at him flirtily through a mess of tears. (Cause even if he’s a total man-whore, he knows a funeral is no place to hook up.)

Beside him, Sam is crying so hard he’s wheezing, so Dean secures his eyes onto him and guides him away. Stands there, counting Sam’s breaths aloud, trying to come off as nonchalant, this strong older brother, not the one scared out of his wits, hands-raked-through-hair. 

“Dean,” Sam says, voice sounding like a child’s. “What the  _ fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck what the fuckwhatthefuck- _ ”

“I promise it’ll be okay,” Dean breathes. Feels Sam’s fists on his suit coat, the tears on his shoulder, his younger brothers shaking. 

_ It has been 22 years and 2 days since Dean first yanked his brother from the fire.  _

“Dean-”

“I swear to god, Sam, it’ll be okay.” 

_ It will, it will, it will, it will. Jesus, goddamned punk ass demons. _

  
  


“You ready?” Dean asks Sam. Hands him a beer over the table, over the pile of suits left on the floor. Mom wanted them to come back to Lawrence for a bit. Sam said no. 

“Yeah,” Sam says. Takes the beer, opens it, takes a swig. Wipes his mouth on his sleeve, like some overgrown kid. 

_ Dear God, Joseph, and the fucking virgin Mary, what the fuck is he doing? _

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“The thing that killed Jess is the same thing that killed our birth mom.”

The fly hovering over the window sill, the beer in his hand, the scars and panic attacks and therapists and the sleeping pills and  _ the girl, insides torn out, eyes glassy and mouth open, dripping blood- _

“Oh.”

“I found out when I got attacked by a werewolf. You all thought it was an animal attack but it  _ wasn’t _ , and I went to a physic and she told me everything and then I started hunting ghosts and werewolves and demons and that’s my job I’m not a fucking traveling mechanic I pop ghosts for a living and  _ fuck-” _

Sam’s hands are around Dean’s neck, tackling him to the floor.

“You crazy bastard,” Sam yells, teeth gnashing, hair flopping, hands tight enough to hurt but not tight enough to prevent him from breathing. “You think I’d believe that Dean, huh? ‘I pop ghosts for a living’? Don’t lie to me, you  _ fucker _ , Jess is  _ gone, _ and you tell me this? God, Dean-”

Sam’s hands release Dean’s neck, collapsing along with their owner onto him, ragged, cut, broken, sobbing. Glass crushed underfoot, spilled beer, moment pressed into the floorboards. 

The fly hovering over the window sill, the beer in his hand, the scars and panic attacks and therapists and the sleeping pills and  _ the girl, insides torn out, eyes glassy and mouth open, dripping blood- _

“You should have told me,” Sam wails, and even though Dean’s lungs need oxygen, he doesn’t shove Sam off him. “It’s all your fault, Dean, you should have stopped it.”

“I know,” He whispers, twisting them upright, arms tight around Sam. “I know, 1 million times over.”

“ _ Dean.” _

“I promise it’ll be okay”

He promises,  _ promises _ , and this time he hopes 10 million times over is enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im really sick of always being like hey!!! I hate this so much!!!, so im reforming myself and now saying that im proud of it! Cause I am! I worked hard on this!
> 
> please validate me i really need it


	8. Nine of Wands (Reversed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby knows Dean Winchester like the back of his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update!

Bobby knows Dean Winchester like the back of his hand.

Dean was 18 when they met, new to being an adult, new to being a hunter. He was still all fresh-faced and childlike- still letting the blood get to him, still hesitating before loading the bullet into the barrel, silver to the heart. 

Bobby knows him ‘cause no matter how much that kid thinks he’s unknowable, thinks his scars are a map of everything uncharted, thinks he’s his own special brand of fucked-up- monster-killing-badass, Dean Winchester isn’t that hard to figure out. Bobby had had him all figured out 2 days into meeting him, 2 seconds even- staring at this angry 18-year-old with nightmares of fire and death and  _ Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. _

Dean Winchester now, who is on his porch dragging his younger brother, looks exactly the same. A little more rugged- jaw filled out, leather jacket adorned, Ford Taurus replaced with some monster of a car that doors creak like old floorboards and an engine that purrs like Karen’s old cat Moony. 

“Bobby,” The kid says, boots clumping as he makes his way up the porch stairs. His grin is the same, maybe a little less reckless, maybe a little more. Bobby can’t tell. “This is my kid brother Sammy.”

“Sam.” The kid corrects. Sticks out a hand for him to shake. 

Bobby eyes it. 

“No need for formal here. I’m Bobby Singer.”

“Best damn hunter in the midwest,” Dean says, grin still plastered on his face like it’s the only thing that’s keeping him and Sam together. “We can stay here for a bit. Get you all caught up.” 

“Okay,” Sam says, all quiet-like. 

He’s too young for this. They both are. Too young for waking up from nightmares screaming, too young for scars. 

He lets them in the house. 

Dean is still grinning. It is starting to look painful. 

“Sam, Bobby here has like, 8000 books. About all sorts of stuff, from demons to shifters, to black dogs- a-z, man. A-friggin’-mazing.”

“Dean,” Sam says. His mouth is set in a hard line, eyes big and sad. Poor kid. “It’s okay.” He turns to Bobby. “Is there a place where I can set my bag?”

“Upstairs. 1st door on the left.”

“Shower, too?”

“Knock yourself out, kid.”

Sam retreats up the stairs, and Dean drops his duffel on the ground with a thunk. Crosses the living room to the kitchen, reaching into the fridge and returning with two beers.

“His girlfriend died,” he says flatly, handing one to Bobby, opening the other and taking a sip. “Same way our birth mom did. Up in motherfucking flames.”

“Demon?” Bobby asks. Watches as Dean wanders to the library again, eyes searching the shelves. 

“Yep.” The word sounds sharp, barbed. 

“You gonna hunt it?” 

Dean looks back at him, mouth quirked into a grin. Not the lighthearted silly one, but one that speaks of late nights and danger, of whiskey and death.

“Yep.”

It’s been only 2 weeks since Dean yanked Sam to Sioux falls, and Sam is already sick of how he’s treading on eggshells around him. 

He doesn’t remember Dean being like this before. Doesn’t remember careful grins, psychoanalysis, this tentative protectiveness. He just remembers Dean, who was a teenaged, rebellious mess, and then with the dark-rimmed eyes and blood smeared onto his hands, 15 stitches, sleeping meds, Suzie Daniels telling Sam that her older sister told her that Dean had gone crazy.

Last week, he returned to the house with new shirts and jeans for Sam all in the right size because all of his old ones burned, which is strangely thoughtful. 

He knows he can’t avoid thinking about the fire for much longer. 

Dean’s also been weirdly methodical about teaching Sam about hunting. Dean teaches him stuff about weapons and shit, Bobby teaches him lore, and on afternoons, Dean drags him out to the salvage yard to teach him about cars cause he claims that part of being a hunter is owning a kick-ass car, too. 

That’s what they're doing now, Dean bent over the hood of his Chevy Impala. 

“See, that’s a spark plug. It lights the fuel. They supposedly last around 100,000 miles, and they’re pretty easy to fix. You following?”

Sam shrugs. Shifts his hands into his pockets. Shrugs again. 

He gives 2 shits about Dean’s silly new muscle car. 

“Nope.” He makes eye contact with Dean. He’s sick of playing the fragile little brother, sick of replaying Jess’s death, sick of training. He’s ready. 

It’s been two weeks. 

“I’d rather fucking do something that's actually useful with my time.” The way Dean’s face contorts from open and smiling and into something hard, angry, makes something in Sam twist.

“What, like hunt down the thing that killed Jess?” Dean asks eyebrows pinched, mouth tightened, fingers grease-stained. 

Sam nods. 

“Sure. We are gonna do that, right? Cause we’ve been here for two weeks, Dean, and you haven’t mentioned it once.” 

“You’re seriously pulling this? It’s been two weeks, man, you are nowhere near ready.”

Sam snorts. Steps forward. It feels good to start something, in some twisted way. Feels good to get Dean all riled up, feels good to have an excuse to yell at his older brother for this entire situation, Jess, charred, on the ceiling, the ache buried deep inside of him. 

“I’m sick of waiting around here. You tell me the big secret that ‘you pop ghosts for a living’ and then just expect me to forget about it? Just expect me to be okay with us sitting here with our thumbs up our asses, doing nothing? God, Dean, Jess is  _ dead, _ and I swear to god, if we don’t kill that thing fast, I’m gonna freaking-.” 

He breathes in. Dean quietly, echo of what he was 9 years ago, stares at him. Turns his back carefully, mirrors Sam’s deep breath, and leaves. 

(Jess, Jess, Jess. Last summer, at the lake house, her mother told him he was perfect, and that night Jess had kissed his fingertips and eyelids and forehead, and told him that her mother was right.)

  
  


Dean listens. Drags Sam on a hunt, gives him instructions to wait in the car. When Dean says he’s digging up the grave, Sam insists that he helps, so he gets a gun shoved at him and a careful reminder to keep his hands steady. Instructions to keep watch barked between barred teeth. 

Sam almost gets Dean killed, and he bleeds all over the seats of his car. Moans about the upholstery, tells Sam to pass him the first aid kit. Sam watches as Dean stitches up the gash on his thigh, peering over the steering wheel, mouth a firm line, blood painfully red. 

When he’s done, Dean brings his diligent head up, tosses Sam a grin, shoves the bloody needle and dental floss back into the kit. 

Sam doesn’t know why, but sitting in the passenger's side of Dean’s Impala, listening to him croon to the Grateful Dead, windows rolled down and the night streaming in, he has the urge to cry. 

(“Invite Dean next time we come here. I want to meet him.” Honey-sweet, mouth parted, sticky heat. 

“I haven’t seen him since last summer.” She tastes like the lake. 

“It’ll be fun. He can tell me embarrassing stories, and we can have a cookout, and Mom and Dad’ll meet him.”

“He’s not like that.”

Hums. Lazy, fingers tracing edges. 

“Yeah, uh. He just doesn’t do like. Normal shit.”

Tanned skin, arm draped over his torso. Damp hair pinned under his head, smile a little bit sad. 

Jess, Jess, Jess.)

Sam doesn’t do normal shit anymore, either. 

Not anymore, at least. 


	9. Ace of Cups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean decomposes. He's not so pretty anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the huge time skip, but i didn't know what to put in between  
> Also Destiel in this chapter!!!! (finally)

Their parents die. A demon controlled semi collides with the Impala, and their father dies on impact. Their mother gives her life to the yellow-eyed demon in exchange for Deans. They have the funeral publically, and all of their family friends come and stare at the brothers. Whisper apologies through tears after they read their eulogies, clasp hands.

Sam dies, and Dean buries a box of photos, a bone, and some dirt in the middle of a crossroads. When Sam is all back and good and the yellow-eyed demon is dead, he yells at Dean until his voice is gone and he’s crying. Their parents are dead. Half of Dean feels guilty about leaving Sam alone, but the other half feels so fucking numb. 

He dies a year later. Hellhounds rip him apart, and Sam cries over his body, drags it out of the house, stuffs it into the trunk of the Impala. When Bobby asks him if he should start with a pyre, Sam punches him in the jaw. 

So they bury him. 

Dean decomposes. He’s not so pretty anymore. 

When he emerges from the grave, newly minted, his scars are gone. Skin clear, unblemished other than handprint, raised and red and painful. It looks wrong. Dean hasn’t looked this way since before he was 11. Even the scars from the werewolf are gone, even the one from where he crashed a golf cart and tore up his knee, even the one where Sam bit him hard enough to scar Dean when he was 9. It doesn’t matter though. Dean is whole again, the way he always is at the beginning of Alistair's mind games, and he knows that won’t last. 

_ This isn’t real. _

His ears ring, and Bobby hangs up on him. Click, dial tone. He hotwires a car, and Bobby thinks he’s some sort of monster, slashes at Dean with a knife. Dean feels like one. He’s been dead, rotting in hell, skin torn off of him, ribs pried out of his chest with crowbars. He doesn’t understand how he’s here at all. 

_ This isn’t real.  _

They drive to Pontiac. Bobby does not ask him about hell. Dean doesn’t know whether that is good or bad. 

Sam looks good. Put together, other than the seedy motel room and the girls bra on the floor. When he hugs Dean, he doesn’t seem to want to let go. 

“Dean,” He says, mouth a downturned, tragic line, eyes filling with something Dean can’t deal with right now. “How?”

His breath rattles in his chest. The words get caught a little, come out broken and cracking. “Don’t know. Thought you would.” 

Sam inspects him. The sharp lines of his face, the lent shirt from Bobby. 

“I didn’t make a deal.”

Dean doesn’t know if he’s lying or not, but the look on his face is open and heartbreaking and Dean doesn’t know if this is a trick anymore. Doesn’t know if it’s another one of Alistair’s games, another taste of freedom just to yank him back again and fish his intestines out through his mouth. 

Dean is tired. Sam looks it, too. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, sure.”

Bobby suggests a psychic. Pamela Barns is her name, and they take the Impala, and Dean feels like he could cry. 

He hopes this is real. Hopes, prays. 

Pamela is pretty and nice, and when she presses her hand against the handprint and whispers the name Castiel, her eyes get burnt out of her skull. 

Dean thinks that might have happened to him once, down there. He’s not sure, because 30 years of it has all mixed together with the other 10. 

There are demons in the diner, and Dean runs because they make his stomach flip, and Sam leaves at some point in the night, and when Dean wakes up the ceiling is falling on him and the glass is breaking and Bobby hauls him up and out and-

_ And, and, and.  _

It is not love at first sight. 

Dean buries his knife into its chest, and it yanks it out, tosses it to the floor, brings its fingers to Bobby’s head, and makes him collapse.

“Hello Dean,” it says, and it’s eyes are the kind of blue that mean danger, mean drowning, mean lightning storms and 10-foot waves. “We need to talk.”

It becomes Castiel. Becomes Cas, angel of the lord, doubting and a little more human than the rest. 

When Dean kisses him, chest heavy and achy and a mess, he does not kiss back. Just whispers his name, tentative. Apologizes. 

It is okay. Dean has spent half his life like this, interlocked with people who don’t care half as much as he does. Cas is something better than him anyway, a human outfitted with everything but feelings, a machine on a mission. 

Sam tells him that sometimes Cas will stare at Dean, and that his eyes bore into him like drills, and that his head tilts in a way that seems like he’s trying to solve Dean. 

(Like he’s trying to smooth all his shit over, just like he did his scars.)

Sam doesn’t understand when Dean spends his night up, pacing. Doesn’t understand that  _ of course he was lying about forgetting Hell, of course, of course, of course _ . 

Alistair’s flesh feels good under the knife, and Cas’s words ring in Dean’s head. 

_ For what it's worth, I would give anything not to have you do this. _

Alistair cackles, and Dean moves the blade upward. Listens to Alistair’s panting. Keeps his mouth a fine line, keeps his hands from shaking, keeps Cas’s words in his head because they might mean  _ something _ . 

_ For what it's worth, I would give anything.  _

Alistar grins, and his teeth are bloody. Dean takes the knife out of the hole in his chest. Turns back around to his cart of everything torture, grabs the salt, shoves it down Alistair’s throat. 

He screams. Moans about the first seal, about his father, about how it was supposed to be him. About Lilith. 

Dean’s left pinky twitches as he turns around. Heart stutters, head pounds. His mouth is still a fine line, his hands still don’t shake. 

_ For what it's worth.  _

Demons lie. Over and over and over. 

When he turns, Alistair is on him, his fists, his limbs, his  _ razor, knife, set of pliers, fingernails raking, bones snapping, knife in his chest, twisting, twisting, twisting.  _

Castiel has Ruby’s knife in hand, and when he shoves it into Alistair's heart, it sparks, shines, gleams. 

_ Worth. _

When he wakes, the pain is welcome. A punishment for a sin, something to keep him in check. 

Cas comes in, and his hair is mused and eyes are crazy and his mouth is stern. 

It was all his fault. All of it. 

“I know our fate rests with you,” Cas says. He doesn’t look uncertain, because his face is always indifferent. A fucking soldier, cog in the machine, henchman. 

The world is falling in on him, and he can’t hold it up. He doesn’t know why Cas thinks he will. 

“I can't do it, Cas. I'm not strong enough. Find someone else. It's not me.”

And he cries. Because, because, because. 

His body is whole. He hates it. 

“Dean…” 

“I want them back,” He whispers, and his voice is hoarse. “My scars, Cas, I don’t look-”

He can still feel Alistair's hand buried halfway into his chest. Exploring, rooting around, pulling his slimy, beating heart out with a grin on his face. 

“I want them back, Cas, please.”

Cas stares and his mouth is still set, and Dean is still crying. 

Cas holds him until the nurse comes in, and he’s not whole anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please validate me and my writing
> 
> Also this has an end destination! Next chapter will be the last! And! It will be very destiel-y! so if thats your thing stick around!


	10. Ten of Cups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean bakes a pie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter, guys!

Dean still wakes up crying. 

Castiel doesn’t fix everything. Fixes some things, like the ache in Dean’s chest, like the empty bed, like the motel rooms and squatting and sleeping in the back of Baby. 

Some, not all. 

Dean still has bad days, bad nights. They both do. 

But it’s okay. 

Tonight, Dean wakes up panting, Sam’s name on his lips. He doesn’t remember his dream. Cas lays in bed beside him, just like always, and the Bunker is humming like it does at night- the noise of generators and air conditioners, water pipes and water heaters. 

Cas grumbles in his sleep, and Dean shuffles out of bed, careful not to disturb him. Sleeping is a new thing. Cas only Fell just a couple of months ago, only just started being a little more human, only started getting on top of eating and sleeping and crying and feeling as hard as the rest of them do. (Cas used to get angry about it. Didn’t understand why he kept passing out, didn’t understand why Dean would hover like a mother hen, didn’t understand that when he got all shivery and sneezy it meant  _ sick _ , not a hex or a malfunction.)

Dean breathes out sharply from his nose, grabs his jacket from the back of the door. The bunker is always cold- all flinty tile and stone floors and sweeping and grand and frigid ceilings. Dean always feels cold. That’s why the hunter’s wardrobe fits him, the long sleeves under flannels under Carhartt jackets, the Red Wing boots, the blue jeans. Cas will forever make fun of him for it, will forever complain about the cold feet, and Dean will forever laugh in his face.  _ Just the cost of loving Dean Winchester, angel. _

Dean goes to check in on Sam, just like he usually does after a nightmare. Watches his chest to see if he’s breathing, makes sure that the gun Sam keeps under his pillows safety is on. He would do it to Cas, too, if he didn’t wake up sure of it every day. Didn’t wake with Cas’s legs curled around his, didn’t wake with fingers in his hair, and soft breathing beside his ear. 

It’s nights where Dean feels guilty about dragging Sam into this. Feels guilty about the death that it caused, feels guilty about Jess and Mom and Dad. Dean used to be barely past teenaged, anger and fire, and smirks. Recklessness and fast driving and trauma wrapped up into a bow. He is older now. The guilt for all the shit Barely-past-teenaged-Dean did nearly drowns him. 

Dean leaves Sam once he’s counted his breaths, just to see if they’re even and normal, and pads into the Bunkers kitchen. They don’t hunt that much anymore. There are other things like documenting all the Men of Letters files, like Sam and his building of a hunter support network, like buying appliances so it doesn’t the Bunker doesn’t feel like a damn  _ hospital _ , like-

His stomach rumbles. Like- like making pie.

He’s got the ingredients for the crust at least, and a variety of fruit in the fridge. Apple pie is the best, obviously, but Sam likes blackberry and Cas is a fan of blueberry, so. 

So he’ll combine them. 

He gets out the flour and the sugar and salt. Adds in the butter, adds that to the ice water, mixes with the wooden spoon that Cas got him when he got into whittling for a brief amount of time 2 months ago. He divides it in half, leaves them both to chill, and then gets started on the filling. 

It’s insane they’ve come this far. It’s only been 4 years, and everything has changed. Sam grew out his hair even longer, and Cas Fell to earth and Dean fell so in love with it all that he’s scared it might be taken away. 

He doesn’t remember the last time he was this happy. 11 years old, maybe. For some reason when he was in 6th grade, everyone began to like him. He had kissed Nancy Gardner under the swing set (his very first kiss) and his baseball team won every single game that season. 

He sighs. Sighs again, cause it’s a bad habit of his, then pours the chopped apples into a pan, turns the stove on medium heat, and stirs them a little. 

He misses baseball, sometimes, which is silly because it’s been years and years and years, but still. Maybe, if Cas ever allows him, they can go out to the abandoned lot a couple of miles from the Bunker and play a quick round. Invite Charlie and Kevin and Claire and Maggie and the rest of the hunters Sam has found. It’d be fun. They could even do a little cookout thing- use the brand new grill Dean got online and have Jody make lemon bars, set off fireworks, and stay up a little too late. 

“Dean?” 

Cas has crept up behind him, and Dean jumps, just a little. 

“Cas,” he says, then turns. He’s got a dopey smile on his face, he knows that, but Cas is so beautiful it  _ hurts.  _ “I’m making pie.”

Cas smiles back. Drapes his arms over Dean’s neck, rests his head on his shoulder. He doesn’t comment on the fact that it’s 3:47 am, or that Dean’s wearing his coat buttoned all the way up over a pair of sweatpants that are a good 6 inches too short.

“Apple?”

“Gonna throw in some berries too.” 

Cas lifts his head. 

“Blueberries?”

“Yeah. Blackberries, too.”

They stand in the silence. Sit in it. Dean mixes the apples on the stove.

“You’re a marvel, Dean Winchester,” Cas says from behind him, arms wrapped around his middle. 

Dean hums, smiles, grins. Shuffles back to face Cas, stares a little. 

“I know,” he says, and Cas laughs. 

“You should be more thankful, you know. I Fell for you.”

Dean kisses Cas, and it’s every single year spent wasted on pointless things, every single second wasted on revenge and anger and blood. It’s every single ache and pain and burn soothed, every single smile and laugh and eye crinkle. 

“Love you,” Dean breathes. 

And he does. Like a limb, like an organ, like every scar. 

Longing, longing, longing. He kisses Cas, long and slow. 

“Marvel.”

“Angel,” he says back. 

He might still wake up crying. Still might have bad nights, bad days, bad in-betweens. 

It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. He’s happy, through all of it.

In the end, the apples burn. 

The pie still tastes great. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that's all! I really hoped you enjoyed this story, as I had a great time writing it! Sorry for the sporadic updates, and thanks to everyone who stuck with it!   
> In terms of me basically erasing the entire post season 5 timeline- I have no clue how it works out. All I know and had in mind was that the Winchesters stop the apocalypse and Lucifer, and then once all that has ended, they sort of retire. At some point in time, they find the Men of Letters bunker and begin to use that as their home base.  
> While I think there are several great seasons after season 5, I chose to not cover these as it would make this story 8 times longer!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and thank you so much!!


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